Some of this is true. Some of this is better. –Too Much Joy

I know you’re all clamoring to know more about my trip to Ireland and Luxembourg (I know this because one person asked me about it, and so I’m rounding up). I do plan on blogging about the rest of the trip eventually, but it will have to wait because at the moment I am knee deep in NaNoWriMo and trying not to drown in post-election despair. So, perhaps in December…

If you need something to read in the meantime, I humbly recommend You Don’t Know Us… a collection from the Budlong Woods Writers, which I am privileged to be a part of. The writers among our ranks range from relative novices to accomplished award winners, but we all have at least one thing in common: we put our hearts into this book. Hope you enjoy getting to know us a bit.

On the morning of Day 5, Michelle and I again walked in to the main part of Killorglin with hopes that, this time around, some of the shops would actually be open. They were, and they included this place, the name of which amused me, and where I finally purchased the sweater in the window that I’d eyed every time I walked past the store.

We spent much of the rest of the day on the road, and as we passed through Limerick, we (mostly I) decided that collaborating to compose some limericks would be a great car game. To commemorate our stay in Killorglin, we wrote one about His Royal Goatness, King Puck.

There once was a goat named King Puck
Who once a year ran quite amokThey took him to town
And gave him a crown
To bring all the children good luck

And how could we not honor our favorite songster from the previous evening?

There once was a urinal singer
A bit tipsy but still a real ringer
His notes never missed
When he took a piss
Which caused other people to linger

It also happened to be the birthday of a dear friend of ours, so we had to write a limerick for her as well. In doing so we learned that it’s harder than you might think to find rhymes for “September.”

On this fine day in September
Sara we surely remember
We stand up and yell
“Hey, we wish you well!”
May your party last into November*

We stopped to see the Rock of Cashel. We noticed this sign in the parking lot, which led us to wonder is castle tailgating a thing?

I can’t say I would have thought to tailgate in a castle parking lot

The Rock of Cashel was by far the oldest and probably coolest looking of the castles we’d seen. My enjoyment of it was hardly dampened by the fact that I had “Rock of Cashel” repeating in my head to the tune of “Rock the Casbah” the entire time I was there.

Grumpy castle is grumpy

Irish High Cross at the Rock of Cashel

Generally good advice

Celtic knots

Birds circling ominously

The round tower at the Rock of Cashel

We headed to Dublin and arrived with just about enough time to check in to our new place and head out to the Literary Pub Crawl we’d booked. The crawl included stops at four pubs (The Duke, M.J. O’Neill’s, The Old Stand, and Davy Byrne) as well as Trinity College. At each stop, the guides regaled participants with interesting anecdotes about Irish authors and acted out portions of their work. It was great fun, probably not hindered by the fact that I’d had a few beers without having had a proper dinner. At the end of it all, the guides quizzed the audience on what they’d learned. I won a T-shirt, not necessarily because I learned the most but rather because I was quick and loud with the answers (also not hindered by the aforementioned beers). Eh, who needs dinner when you have beer and a free T-shirt in size XXL?

Best pint glass ever

It’s a major award!

*The line I originally composed for this was “And hope that you don’t get dismembered,” but I was overruled. I guess a birthday poem that contains the word “dismembered” might not make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, but it was clearly expressing an anti-dismemberment stance. I mean really, birthday dismemberment is the worst.

I started my fourth day in Ireland with a nice wine glass full of coffee. Why a wine glass? Well, I searched the cupboards for coffee cups but found none, so I had to make do with what was at hand.

Breakfast of champions

Fortified by breakfast, I readied myself for the day ahead, which included using the weirdest hair dryer in the world. I’m pretty accustomed to hair dryers that are attached to walls, but this one looked more like a central vacuum than a hair dryer. It did blow hot(ish) air, but there was no way to properly direct the flow. Plus, all but the slightest move would trigger the dryer to automatically shut off.

What the what?

But anyway, I survived this hardship, and Michelle and I walked into the main part of Killorglin to explore, pausing on the way to take selfies with the statue of King Puck because who doesn’t love a selfie with a bronze statue of a goat wearing a crown?

All hail his goaty graciousness!

Having been on vacation for a while, we’d sort of lost track of what day it was, but we were reminded that it was Sunday upon seeing that the only things open in Killorglin were a grocery store and a lamb farm supply store. Priorities, you know.

The four of us then set off to do some sight seeing by car, giving Friday his first driving experience in Ireland. Nobody threw up, and we all lived to tell about it, so we’ll call it a success. We thought we had seen some narrow roads before that point, but those were nothing compared to the ones around the Lakes of Killarney. The roads were also quite twisty, so it wasn’t actually possible to go very fast, which is good because there were plenty of hikers, bikers, and sheep about.

Gap of Dunloe

House in the Gap of Dunloe–it’s a bit of a fixer-upper

Does it get any more Irish than this?

Ladies’ View, Killarney National Park

I absolutely must mention Jarvey’s Rest, where we ate lunch and I had, by far, my best meal of the entire trip—a wild mushroom duxelles and spinach filo strudel served with red onion compote and a leek cream sauce. YUM.

Torc Waterfall, Killarney National Park

Muckross Lake

I’ve heard of tree huggers, but it seems that this tree would rather have a kiss!

Ross Castle

Look, mom–I’m in a castle!

Later on, we returned to Bunkers Bar in Killorglin, for dinner, drinks, and a traditional Irish music session. At one point in the evening, Ian came back from the men’s room to report that the man who had stood next to him at the urinal was quite drunk…but had a lovely singing voice. Apparently, he had just been warming up because not long after that, he joined the session and graced the entire bar with that voice. Finally, we felt like we’d gotten the true Irish pub music experience!

On the morning of our third day in Ireland, we bid farewell to Ballyvaughn, but not before stopping at a service station to fuel up. Well, what I should really say is that we stopped at there nd puzzled for longer than we’d like to admit about how to open the fuel tank on the rental car. We searched diligently for a switch, exploring every inch of the dashboard, the glove compartment, the center console, and the driver’s side door. I would have gladly read the freakin’ manual to solve the mystery, but we couldn’t find that either. So, there we were, seven degrees among the four of us, and we couldn’t open the damn tank to put fuel in the car. We were just going to have to live in Ballyvaughn forever! Thankfully, one of the service station employees came to our rescue and showed us what to do. It’s very complicated, you know…you just open the door. There’s no lock. None of us had even thought to try that. After all, we’re from America where we fervently protect our highly subsidized gas!

With that out of the way, we set off to Dunguaire Castle, near which we narrowly avoided an all-too-close encounter with a tourist who either had a death wish or was completely oblivious to the fact that 1) Irish roads are narrow, 2) there are scores of other tourists around who are driving cars they’re not used to, very possibly on a side of the road they’re not use to, and 3) THIS WOULD BE A GOOD TIME TO PAY ATTENTION TO WHERE YOU WALK. I don’t think he even realized how close we came to hitting him. We were half tempted to go back and just tap him with the car so he would at least learn a lesson, but then we remembered that we were the four people who couldn’t figure out how to open a fuel tank, so perhaps we should dial back a bit on the judginess.

Dunguaire Castle

View From Dunguaire Castle

Obligatory selfie

Castle web

From Dunguaire Castle, we headed toward Dingle, a town whose name always causes my internal 12-year-old to giggle. We got stuck in a traffic jam in Adare, but that allowed me to get this picture, so not all was lost.

Gas stations here are very sullen because stupid tourists can’t figure out how to work their rental cars.

Otherwise, the drive was scenic and pleasant…except for the stretch when we were stuck behind an old truck that was wobbling so much, I was a little afraid it was going to break into pieces at any moment. Anyway, Ian was practically becoming an expert at driving on the challenging Irish roads.

Upon arriving in Dingle (teeheehee), we ate lunch at Murphy’s Pub, during which time Ian and Friday almost came to blows while debating the merits of roundabouts. This seemed to be a clue that it was time for everyone to chill out for a while, so we took a relaxing stroll around Dingle (giggle). We had noticed that ice cream cones are to the Irish what bottles of water are to Americans. No matter whether they were driving trucks, riding bikes, or conducting symphonies (okay, we might not have actually seen that last one), most Irish people about town seemed to have ice cream cones. That was reason enough to pop into Murphy’s Ice Cream (which makes me wonder how many different establishments named Murphy’s could one patronize in a single day). I sampled some gin ice cream, which was good but not what I was in the mood for. I opted for Irish coffee and sea salt.

Colorful Dingle (gigglesnort)

A cousin of Crookshanks, perhaps?

We had learned our lesson on previous days, so we stopped at the grocery store in Dingle (snicker) for fortifications before driving to our next home away from home in Killorglin. Once there, we relaxed with a beer and then headed out for dinner…and more beer. It was not a long walk to the main part of town, but it was more treacherous than one might guess. By that time it was dark, and we had to walk a few hundred feet without sidewalk. Then Michelle was viciously attacked by stinging nettles and Friday decided to eat some random berries from bushes by the roadside. Apparently, they were not poisonous because he survived.

I love toucans.

At Bunkers Bar, we had dinner and drinks and settled in to listen to some real live Irish music at a real live Irish pub. The guitarist twiddled around for a short time and then went away for 45 minutes, during which we entertained ourselves by discussing fascinators, trying brown sauce (thumbs down), and tossing out bits of wisdom like, “When you’re naked, you don’t have pockets.” When he returned, we couldn’t help but laugh because our first experience with real live Irish music in a real live Irish pub was…City of New Orleans. Good morning, America, and good night, Ireland!

The morning of our second day on the Emerald Isle, we encountered our first Irish traffic jam. In case you can’t tell because of the poor quality of the photo (it was taken through the windshield…no, I was not the one driving), those are horses.

This is allegedly a two-way road. Really, Ireland?

Our first stop was the Cliffs of Insanity…erm, I mean the Cliffs of Moher. I’m told we were lucky to have been there on a clear day, as many a traveler had gone to the cliffs only to have them mostly obscured by fog. We couldn’t have picked a better day…well, except for the fact that we were there outside of puffin nesting season.😦

Three of us being alumni of Bradley University, we even brought along a flat version of the school’s founder, Lydia Moss Bradley, as part of her 200th birthday celebration (#CelebrateLydia).

Bradley Alumni with Flat Lydia at the Cliffs of Moher

In addition to the stunning views, we saw several signs…with varying degrees of usefulness.

They’re not called the Cliffs of Insanity for nothing.

My best guess is that this means “do not light seagulls on fire.”

Our next destination was Poulnabrone Dolmen, which, contrary to what you might believe, does not mean “stones wrapped in giant grape leaves.” It’s actually a portal tomb, which dates back to the Neolithic period, and sort of looks like Frank Lloyd Wright’s take on Stonehenge.

Poulnabrone Dolmen

Karst field

Life amidst the rocks

From there, we went to Kilfenora for lunch and libations at Vaughn’s Pub.

Ailwee Cave was next on our agenda. During the tour, for a short time, all light sources were extinguished, and we were allowed to experience complete darkness. The guide instructed us to wave our own hands in front of our faces, and I swore I could see my hand…even though I knew I really couldn’t. It’s not hard to imagine how, if lost in the total darkness of a cave, one’s mind could quickly begin to play tricks.

“Straws” in Ailwee Cave (apparently, they don’t get much longer than this, so we were lucky again)

Having finished our sightseeing for the day, we headed back to Ballyvaughn. This time, we made it to the grocery store before it closed, only to find that they did not carry beer. Yes, we’d bought some the night before, but that wasn’t going to last forever. Instead, we restocked our supply of snacks and planned to hit the off-license store again later.

We dined at L’Arco, an Italian restaurant with good food and…unhurried service. By the time we were done there, the off license store was closed (turns out it’s only open for about 2 hours each day). Once again, we were left to wonder, why is it so hard to by beer in Ireland? Nevertheless, the day was in the books as a good one.

I find that plane trips are good times to see movies that I probably would never get around to watching otherwise. Thus, as I set off on my long-awaited trip to Ireland, I fired up Purple Rain on the in-flight entertainment system. Somehow, I had managed to live through the eighties without seeing it…except, when I started to watch it, I realized that I had actually seen pretty much the whole thing (minus some nudity and a few points that I guess were collectively considered a plot), as practically the whole movie was contained in various videos by Prince and Morris Day. Even so, I felt good about having filled in one pop cultural blind spot from my childhood.

But never mind that. This post is about Ireland (which is notoriously rainy but not notoriously purple, so I won’t try to sell you that connection since it would be a stretch). My traveling companions (my husband Ian and good friends Michelle and Friday) arrived in Dublin on a Thursday morning. Not fully appreciating how exhausted we would all be from the long flight and the jet lag, we’d planned to set out right away in our rental car to see some sights, eventually making our way to Ballyvaugn, where we would spend two nights.

I was incredibly happy to not have the responsibility of driving. Even being a passenger in a car that drives on the left is weird. My jet lag-addled mind began to overcompensate for the weirdness, completely reversing right and left, such that, when someone told me to look at some lovely view to my right, I looked left instead. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure everyone in the car (and the rest of Ireland for that matter) was glad I was not the one behind the wheel. Ian, on the other hand, did a great job staying on the proper side of the road, maneuvering through the seemingly endless series of roundabouts, and navigating the ridiculously narrow roads, avoiding collisions with rock walls on the left and gigantic tour buses on the right.

Did I mention that the roads are narrow?

Our first stop was the Hill of Tara. As we made our way back toward the car after taking in the views there, a couple walking about 20 feet in front of us stopped, turned around, and began lightly clapping their hands together and calling, “C’mere Friday! C’mon, Friday!” From behind us, a dog came bounding toward the couple. My companions and I all burst out laughing. The couple regarded us curiously, but hen we revealed that there was also a person among us named Friday, they laughed right along with us.

I’m not entirely sure this sign is useful.

Next, we headed for Galway, which held the promise a Ferris wheel. I had never actually set out to collect rides on European Ferris wheels, but it somehow became a thing for me. It started with the London Eye, which was followed by the Wheel of Gothenburg, a Ferris wheel at a traveling carnival in Amsterdam, and the Wiener Riesenrad in Vienna. Hoping to add to my collection, I did a google search before the trip and found a Ferris wheel at a place in Galway called Leisure Land. The website indicated that a large amusement park, which includes a Ferris wheel, operates throughout the summer months. Score!

Apparently, not everyone considers September a summer month (hello, the first three weeks of it are technically still summer!) because we arrived to find that the wheel had been removed for the season at the end of August. Boo!

We are sad because someone stole the Ferris wheel!

We assuaged our disappointment with food and beer at Olso Bar and then wandered around Galway for a bit.

Another not-so-useful sign.

We left Galway, braved more narrow roads and roundabouts, and at last arrived in Ballyvaughn alive and well.

At last, a useful sign!

After settling in and exploring the grounds of the goat farm where we were staying, we decided that we should buy some beer (and maybe some food, but we’d had a late lunch, so beer was the higher priority). Alas, we arrived at the local grocery store five minutes after it closed. Next, we tried a gas station, only to discover they did not sell beer. Who knew it would be so hard to buy alcoholic beverages in Ireland? Don’t the Irish kind of have a reputation for drinking every now and then? Perhaps my karmic punishment for putting stock in such stereotypes was coming in the form of beerlessness.

Searching for beer in the sprawling metropolis of Ballyvaughn

The gas station clerk kindly advised that there was a nearby off-license store (meaning an establishment that sells alcohol for off-premises consumption–hey, I learned something new!) that opened at 7:30. We strolled about Ballyvaughn until the store opened, purchased libations, and headed back to our place for a few drinks, some relaxation, and sweet, sweet sleep.